• Iram Manzoor, Fatima Mukhtar, and Noreen Rahat Hashmi.
• Department of Community Medicine, FMH, College of Medicine and Dentistry, Shadman, Lahore. iramdr123@yahoo.co.in
• J Coll Physicians Surg Pak. 2012 Apr 1; 22 (4): 222-5.

ObjectiveTo assess the students' perspective about role-plays conducted as a teaching methodology in community medicine.Study DesignA quasi-experimental study.Place And Duration Of StudyDepartment of Community Medicine at Fatima Memorial College of Medicine and Dentistry from July to November 2010.MethodologyA probability technique of simple random sampling was used to collect 63 students from the third and fourth year MBBS who were randomly distributed in five sub-groups. They were variously ascribed the roles of obsceners, participants and helpers. A questionnaire was distributed to collect student's responses. The data was analyzed on SPSS version 17 to compare the responses. Chi-square test was applied and p-value was fixed at < 0.05 as significant.ResultsSixty-three students were selected as participants of this study in which 46 belonged to the fourth year MBBS class (73%) and 17 were third year MBBS students (27%). There were 13 male (20.6%) and 50 female (79.4%) students. Role-plays were identified as most effective method of teaching (n = 25, 37.9%) followed by lectures (n = 17, 25.8%, p = 0.054). Fifty-two students (78.5%) admitted that role-plays improved their knowledge of the subject, 55 (84.6%) said that it will help them in their clinical performance. Fifty-nine participants (89.4%) found role-plays interesting and 49 (74.2%) wanted to incorporate role-plays as a part of curriculum. Fifty-six of the participants (88.9%) agreed that role-plays improved their communication skills. Twenty-one participants (31.8%) believed that it helped them in making acquaintance with the local situation. Forty-six students (76.7%) identified role-plays as a feasible way of andragogy (p = 0.005) and 48 (76.2%) said that it provoked critical thinking about the subject (p = 0.038). Fifty-four students (85.7%) admitted that their attention span was better in role-plays as compared to lectures (p = 0.047).ConclusionRole-plays were well accepted by the students as an effective teaching methodology and can be incorporated as a part of teaching strategies in Community Medicine.

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